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Event Information

Kobie Boykins, NASA Engineer

Exploring Mars

Mars Explorer Image: Courtesy of NASA

Few events in the last decade of space exploration have captured the world’s
imagination like NASA’s ongoing Mars Exploration Program. In 2004, the
successful deployment of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity launched
a new era of scientific investigation of our nearest planetary neighbour. For Kobie
Boykins, a mechanical engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the rovers’
success was also a personal triumph: he helped design and build the solar arrays that
enabled to rovers to keep going long after their planned 90-day life (indeed, Opportunity
is still roaming Mars today and sending back images, more than nine years later).

Now, Boykins is also intimately involved with our latest venture to Mars, as supervisor
of the mobility and remote sensing mast teams for the Mars Science Laboratory, better
known as Curiosity. Curiosity landed on Mars last August and has already made
headlines with evidence that conditions on Mars, including the presence of water,
once could have supported life. For work on this and other compelling projects, Boykins
last year received a NASA Exceptional Service Medal, one of the highest honours given
to NASA employees and contractors.

Boykins’ boundless enthusiasm for unravelling the mysteries of outer space,
and Mars in particular, is infectious. Join him for an engaging evening exploring
the Red Planet ⎯ with an update on the very latest chapter in the ongoing story
of Mars exploration.